There are many activities in which it is desireable to count events or items. However, where the occurrence of such events or items is irregular or of relatively low frequency (for example, separated by more than a few seconds) or where, as in athletic activities, other matters must be concentrated upon, memory aids are often desireable to enhance the accuracy of the counting operation or to enhance the ability to concentrate on such other matters while maintaining an accurate count of the events or items. It is also often desireable to maintain information concerning such events or items and their occurrence such as the elapsed time between particular ones of a sequence of events or items.
For this purpose, many types of registers have been developed in the past. Such registers have included devices including thumbwheels with detents, mechanical counters and the like. Such known devices suffer from at least one of two principal drawbacks, especially for use as a personal memory aid during athletic activity, in that they are limiting of full participation in other activities in order for their required transportation or actuation or both. For example, a thumbwheel register, such as has been used by baseball umpires must be held in the hand and, even if affixed to the operator's body in some way, requires a manipulation which, although relatively simple, remains sufficiently complex to be distracting in other activities, thereby interfering with full performance of such activity.
On the other hand, other personal performance registering devices have been known in the past. Such devices usually include some integrating arrangements such as pedometers which, when calibrated for length of stride, output the measured quantity in other terms, such as distance covered in larger units such as miles or kilometers. Other similar devices are known which measure the duration of short intervals of relatively regular occurrence, such as the time between heartbeats, to report pulse rate during athletic activity. The former kind of device was often relatively bulky and potentially interfered with athletic performance while the latter required continual monitoring of the display by the operator to determine performance. Both suffered from the inability to register the performance or the occurrence of events arbitrarily occurring during the course of an activity (such as laps around a track or across a swimming course) as opposed to events occurring as a part of the activity (such as steps, heartbeats, etc.).
Event counters, per se, for use in swimming and track events are also known, but in a form which is adapted to the facility (track, pool, etc.) rather than the operator and, hence are not suitable for personal performance reporting use.
A further problem has been encountered in known electronic devices which have the potential for being made less inhibitory of athletic performance in a personal device in that moisture deriving from either the perspiration of the operator or from the environment, such as rain or the water in which swimming is performed often degrades the performance of the device or renders it inoperable.